Near-Death has that hyphenated qualifier before "death" for a reason. In no NDE was the deceased dead for three days.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
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Near-Death has that hyphenated qualifier before "death" for a reason. In no NDE was the deceased dead for three days.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Besides, YesNo is simply offering one more alternative explanation for the stories that may be more credible than the official Christian explanation. Many alternatives exist -- although we should recognize that which of these we are willing to accept is influenced by our preconceptions and prejudices.
A "miracle" is something than cannot be explained by our understanding of how the physical world "works." Of course that depends on how much we "know" about the physical world. I think it was Isaac Asimov who proposed that folks with a rather rudimentary "science" would be inclined to view more advanced technology as somehow "magical" or "miraculous," just because they would not be able to understand it as "natural."
The Bible describes things we consider "miraculous," such as Moses parting the Red Sea, the Sun and Moon stopping their movements in the sky, Lazarus being raised from the dead, Christ's resurrection, the feeding of multitudes with a few fishes and loaves, etc.
Folks have attempted to explain these and other biblical miracles by plausible ideas...such as earthquakes (the Red Sea) or simple mistakes (Lazarus wasn't really dead).
Then there is the question of improbability. If something is improbable enough, but still possible, is it a miracle? For example, there is nothing thermodynamically impossible about a glass of water at room temperature suddenly turning into ice or boiling away, though that would be very unlikely to spontaneously occur.
As Nick Capozzoli mentions, a miracle is what cannot be explained by our understanding of how the universe works. It is an unusual event. The fact that we are here at all could be viewed as miraculous although we are used to by now.
A religious person would view a miracle as something to justify a specific belief. Others with different belief systems might try to discredit the event. I think a middle ground would be to consider any event that occurs as natural, no matter how unusual it might be.
Some of the events in religious texts are likely stories. I would put the J portion of Genesis in that category along with the stories in the Srimad Bhagavatam. That they actually occurred is not important. Other unusual events, such as the stories surrounding Jesus or Krishna may have actually happened. One would only have to have seen similar events happen elsewhere in some form to grant them credibility.
The only events that puzzle me are physical transformations or manifestations such as turning water into wine or feeding the multitude. However, I think it is best to not jump to a conclusion that something could not happen that someone said occurred or to even jump to an explanation.
To call what we cannot currently explain a "miracle" (though I suspect we can explain the vast majority of so-called miracles, and the people that so-call them such simply don't like the answers. like Keats' rainbow.), is to do nothing but worship your own ignorance. Again, Yudkowsky has the definitive explanation to this with a perfect example:Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Just replace "Elan vital" with "miracle!" and it's THE EXACT SAME THING.Quote:
Imagine looking at your hand, and knowing nothing of cells, nothing of biochemistry, nothing of DNA. You've learned some anatomy from dissection, so you know your hand contains muscles; but you don't know why muscles move instead of lying there like clay. Your hand is just... stuff... and for some reason it moves under your direction. Is this not magic?
...
(Lord Kelvin's explanation) was the theory of vitalism; that the mysterious difference between living matter and non-living matter was explained by an elan vital or vis vitalis. Elan vital infused living matter and caused it to move as consciously directed. Elan vital participated in chemical transformations which no mere non-living particles could undergo—Wöhler's later synthesis of urea, a component of urine, was a major blow to the vitalistic theory because it showed that mere chemistry could duplicate a product of biology.
Calling "elan vital" an explanation, even a fake explanation like phlogiston, is probably giving it too much credit. It functioned primarily as a curiosity-stopper. You said "Why?" and the answer was "Elan vital!"
...
But the greater lesson lies in the vitalists' reverence for the elan vital, their eagerness to pronounce it a mystery beyond all science. Meeting the great dragon Unknown, the vitalists did not draw their swords to do battle, but bowed their necks in submission. They took pride in their ignorance, made biology into a sacred mystery, and thereby became loath to relinquish their ignorance when evidence came knocking.
...
But ignorance exists in the map, not in the territory. If I am ignorant about a phenomenon, that is a fact about my own state of mind, not a fact about the phenomenon itself. A phenomenon can seem mysterious to some particular person. There are no phenomena which are mysterious of themselves. To worship a phenomenon because it seems so wonderfully mysterious, is to worship your own ignorance.
Nick says, “A "miracle" is something than cannot be explained by our understanding of how the physical world "works." Of course that depends on how much we "know" about the physical world.”
This definition embraces certain prejudices. The religious person understands precisely how the Red Sea was parted – God decided to part it to save his Chosen People. In fact, his “understanding of how the physical world ‘works’” is that it works in accordance to God’s will. For such a person, a miracle is a "super-natural" occurence -- and God is "super natural" because although He can affect nature, He is outside of nature Himself. (I'll grant it's all very confusing, and I'm trying to figure it out myself.)
It is true (of course, as morpheus points out) that many things that seem wonderfully mysterious (even miraculous) eventually yield to naturalistic, scientific explanation. No doubt from the point of view of an (imaginary) super-powerful, omniscient God who can part the Red Sea, there's nothing mysterious about it. He probably knows how it is done (if, as is unlikely, He did it).
I don't mean by "natural" a scientific explanation. Natural is just the way things are whatever super human agents might exist. This removes the miraculous or makes everything a miracle.
P. M. H. Atwater in The Big Book of Near-Death Experiences tells the story of George Rodonaia. On page 165 is the following:Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
George's corpse was stored in a freezer vault in the hospital morgue for three days (he doesn't know what the exact temperature was). He revived while the trunk of his body was being split open during autopsy.
He also had an NDE and informed the staff about an infant in the hospital with a broken hip that he discovered while dead.
I take every NDE story with a grain of salt because they have a rich history of getting wildly distorted in the retelling, as this essay points out with a number of the most widely cited cases. What's more, Atwater, as far as I can tell, has zero scientific credentials and exclusively writes on NDEs from the perspective of a New Age believer, so not exactly the most reliable, unbiased source. After a quick Google search on George Rodonaia, it looks like the original story was "reported" by Pravda.ru, the same site that promotes that Global Warming, evolution, the moon landing, and HIV are hoaxes, so not exactly reliable either. It seems that George also knew about the boy beforehand. Any morgue freezer would be cold enough to significantly slow (if not suspend) the dying of cells (that's their entire purpose), so George was not dead when they put him in or pulled him out. Obviously, my statement was concerning ACTUALLY being dead for three days (not being NEAR dead and then stored at a temperature that would slow/suspend the dying of cells).
I think we can differ on whether George Rogonaia was actually dead or not. I think he was. This idea can be threatening to many belief systems, not just atheism.
There are enough cases of people rising from the dead (or supposed dead), to make credible the possibility that Jesus might have done something similar. However, what I find most surprising in those Christian texts are the quantities of shared-death experiences of the survivors. That is strong evidence in favor of Christianity.
More generally, the evidence from NDEs tell me it is reasonable to believe that consciousness is not generated by the brain. They provide another reason to throw out a mechanistic view of the universe.
I don't consider any NDE to be a "miracle", although I can see how some may view them in that manner. They are part of our reality. They also suggest that our reality is more unusual than what some of us believe it to be.
I understand that one does not have to be dying to have these experiences. Pilots subject to strong G-forces have them as the blood drains from their brain. Is there some criteria then for it to qualify as a miracle? As a person with epilepsy I experience real live interaction with others in my sleep. I can swear to feeling all the sensations of touching, smell, sound and moving through the landscape as if I were fully awake and actually there. If it were not for science, this too would be a miracle of God (or the Devils handiwork). Apparently if you stimulate with electricity, a part of the brain called the left and right angular gyrus, most people will report seeing a shadowy figure and have a classic out of body experience.
Are they all christians? Sounds like they should be, having religious experiences from the G-force - after all, who created the G?? G-force, G-spot G-d.... there's a pattern there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Delta40
Do we know what the case was for all the billions of people who died before Jesus was born? Did they see Jesus as he will be in the future, or just the old fella with the long beard? Lucky there were no pilots in those days.
From what I understand, Raymond Moody, the guy who created the term "near-death experience" and "shared-death experience", was able to reproduce something similar to the experience without the subject actually dying.Quote:
Originally Posted by Delta40
I don't think of NDEs as miracles. It is just the sort of things that happen to some people whether or not there are Gods, or Devils, or other sorts of super human agents who may not even know we exist.
The experiments where the brain is stimulated and one sees something that isn't there or has an out of body experience show what is possible. However, if there is a shadowy person out there and you see that person and get a similar change in your brain, does that mean the person you saw was an illusion and not really out there?
Here we go again. Atheism IS NOT A BELIEF SYSTEM and has NOTHING to do with believing/disbelieving in NDEs or life after death. I really wish you'd quit lumping all of these beliefs (about LAD, NDEs, quantum physics, etc.) under "atheism" because atheism ONLY deals with whether or not someone believes in god(s). One cannot believe in god and still believe in other forms of spirituality, the supernatural, LAD, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Also again, you only believe George was dead because you WANT to believe in LAD, despite what everything modern medical science has to tell us about the subject. We know that clinical/medical death is very different from actual death. There is a point past which modern medical science cannot bring a person back, and this is clinical death. However, we also know that brain and body cells are still "alive" for a long time past that point, and we also know that freezing slows/suspends the dying of such cells. From what I can glean from the case, Rodonaia was put into the morgue freezer very shortly after "clinical death," so there's absolutely NO evidence to suggest he was actually dead. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, we should go with medical science, not just believe the opposite because one wants to believe in LAD.
:lol: There are no "cases" of people "rising from the dead," there are stories of people being revived from being NEAR dead. You will not find a single case of someone being declared clinically dead, stuffed in a grave/tomb for three days, and THEN coming back WITHOUT the aid of a death-suspending freezer. What's more, there are tons of NDEs out there that DO NOT experience anything special, or experience something quite different than what believers do. If Christianity was true, everyone should come back and report the same experiences; we shouldn't have accounts of no experiences and wildly different experiences. What's more, until you find a case where a person's brain has completely shut down (IE, really dead, not near death), you can not rule out the brain as a cause behind such experiences. What's more, given that a number of aspects of NDEs can be generated in people without them being near-death (Delta listed several examples), we have no reason to believe any other experiences are being caused by anything other than the brain in an extreme state.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
It's also clear you didn't read the page I linked to. Here is just the opening, which should be devastating to any belief that thinks NDE's and OBE's are REAL OBEs and NOT hallucinations:What's more, if you just read this part of the article it's clear that NDE's are extremely culturally influenced, with people of other cultures/religions encountering completely different "figures" on the other side. What's more, children rarely experience seeing anyone dead, but instead see living people, or even fantasy characters like Santa Claus, wizards, etc. This is all precisely what we'd expect to see if these experiences were happening IN THE PERSON'S BRAIN. If they were genuine experiences of things OUTSIDE the brain, we shouldn't see such cultural and age-dependent variations. We also wouldn't expect to see such "mistakes" being made in what OBEs report of the world around them, though mistakes are quite prevalent (and often omitted from the accounts given by believers).Quote:
As the Fenwicks point out, if OBEs and NDEs are hallucinations,
we should expect there to be major discrepancies between the psychological image—what the person sees from up there on the ceiling, which will be constructed by the brain entirely from memory; and the real image—what is actually going on at ground level. Mrs Ivy Davey, for example, did not see her body, although her body was clearly there (Fenwick and Fenwick 41).
And in the cases above this is exactly what we find. Discrepancies between what's seen out-of-body and what's actually happening in the physical world are found in spontaneous OBEs, in NDEs where a real or perceived threat of imminent harm triggers an OBE, and in NDEs that include an OBE along with other NDE components (e.g., a tunnel and light).
I suspect being in the freezer for three days should kill him off if he wasn't dead already.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Here's a story I came upon while looking up George Rodonaia. It is at the bottom of the page: http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence10.html
There are two other NDE accounts I should mention here. One of them involves an African man named Emanuel Tuwagirairmana. What is interesting about his account is that he claims he was actually dead for seven days. When he returned to his body, it was partially eaten by maggots.
Even the worms thought he was dead.
I'm not discussing this from a Christian perspective. I am only claiming that accounts of Jesus' resurrection should not surprise someone who has heard NDE stories. Some Christians I suspect would claim that only Jesus could rise from the dead and they would agree with you that people who have had NDEs were not actually dead since they came back to life. I claim they were actually dead.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Regarding reporting the same experiences, when you look out the window nearest you, what do you see? Do you see the same thing that I see when I look out the window? Of course not. We both look upon a different reality. Does that mean what each of us sees is not real? Of course not.
This challenge reminds me of Eben Alexander's famous NDE case. Here is the Wikipedia article on him containing comments by his critics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eben_Alexander_(author)Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Alexander makes this response to his critics in Newsweek quoted in that article:
"My synapses—the spaces between the neurons of the brain that support the electrochemical activity that makes the brain function — were not simply compromised during my experience. They were stopped. Only isolated pockets of deep cortical neurons were still sputtering, but no broad networks capable of generating anything like what we call 'consciousness.' The E. coli bacteria that flooded my brain during my illness made sure of that. My doctors have told me that according to all the brain tests they were doing, there was no way that any of the functions including vision, hearing, emotion, memory, language, or logic could possibly have been intact."
As I've mentioned, the NDE topic is threatening to many belief systems, not just atheism. Considering the quantity of these NDE claims and the need of critics to defend their world views, I accept what people like Alexander have to say over their critics. They had the experience, not the critics whose only interest is to defend their metaphysics at all costs.
One doesn't have to be near-death to experience heightened consciousness. The concept of "shared-death" experiences are what survivors sometimes experience that parallel the NDE. Also, religious disciplines could be viewed as a way to attain a heightened experience.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
However, that these NDEs occur after death is evidence that consciousness survives death and that consciousness is not generated by the brain or other parts of the body.
To bring this all back to the topic of this thread: are NDEs miraculous? Well, some people might call them the works of the devil. Others might consider them "miracles". I maintain they are evidence of who we are.
This is not how freezers work. They suspend/slow the dying of cells. This is why a lot of rich people with incurable diseases are having their bodies frozen to be brought back in the future when cures have potentially been found. Freezers won't kill anyone.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
You can claim all you want, but there's zero scientific documentation/proof to support your statement, especially in the light of modern science. You will not find anything beyond unsupported STORIES (IE, not documented cases) of people being dead for multiple days and coming back.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
This is a pitiful analogy for two reasons:Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
1. Actually, neither of us is seeing reality, but our brain's reconstruction and interpretation of information being sent to it from our eyes. What we experience seeing is, in fact, only a MAP of reality, an approximation. This is what makes various optical illusions possible (If you know how a brain interprets what it sees, you can fool it).
2. Disregarding the above, the CLAIM made by Christians is that NDE's are evidence for THEIR version of heaven/the afterlife being true. In fact, most believers who believe in a specific religion's version of the afterlife claim the same thing. The fact that there are such radically different experiences would argue against the claim that any one version is the REAL one that NDErs are experiencing.
3. Following from 2., the only way to claim that these experiences are real OBEs (ie, everyone's consciousness is seeing a reality independent from their body/brain) would be to claim that every culture's version of the afterlife is true and the NDErs are experiencing their culture's afterlife... which, pardon me, but that claim seems utterly absurd. It would amount to the idea that no matter what afterlife any given culture invents, their people would "experience" it as a reality after death. This means if I lived in a culture that thought the afterlife meant meeting Blabagul the omniscient turtle then I would, indeed, actually meet Blabagul when I died.
4. Because I find 3. absurd, the much more logical conclusion is that every NDE is happening inside the dying brains of people experiencing it. This would account for every discrepancy between experiences, since every individual would have a different "model" of the afterlife in their head, and would be "experiencing" this model in their brain as their brain is dying.
Alexander was positively demolished by Sam Harris (an actual neuroscientist) here: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/this-must-be-heavenQuote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Since I know you don't read links, I'll copy/paste the most relevant portions:Quote:
Everything—absolutely everything—in Alexander’s account rests on repeated assertions that his visions of heaven occurred while his cerebral cortex was “shut down,” “inactivated,” “completely shut down,” “totally offline,” and “stunned to complete inactivity.” The evidence he provides for this claim is not only inadequate—it suggests that he doesn’t know anything about the relevant brain science… In his Newsweek article, Alexander asserts that the cessation of cortical activity was “clear from the severity and duration of my meningitis, and from the global cortical involvement documented by CT scans and neurological examinations.” To his editors, this presumably sounded like neuroscience.
The problem, however, is that “CT scans and neurological examinations” can’t determine neuronal inactivity—in the cortex or anywhere else. And Alexander makes no reference to functional data that might have been acquired by fMRI, PET, or EEG—nor does he seem to realize that only this sort of evidence could support his case. Obviously, the man’s cortex is functioning now—he has, after all, written a book—so whatever structural damage appeared on CT could not have been “global.” (Otherwise, he would be claiming that his entire cortex was destroyed and then grew back.) Coma is not associated with the complete cessation of cortical activity, in any case. And to my knowledge, almost no one thinks that consciousness is purely a matter of cortical activity. Alexander’s unwarranted assumptions are proliferating rather quickly…
I confess that I found Alexander’s account so alarmingly unscientific that I began to worry that something had gone wrong with my own brain. So I sought the opinion of Mark Cohen, a pioneer in the field of neuroimaging who holds appointments in the Departments of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Science, Neurology, Psychology, Radiological Science, and Bioengineering at UCLA. (He was also my thesis advisor.) Here is part of what he had to say:
…there are further problems with Alexander’s account. Not only does he appear ignorant of the relevant science, but he doesn’t realize how many people have experienced visions similar to his while their brains were operational. In his online interview we learn about the kinds of conversations he’s now having with skeptics:Quote:
“This poetic interpretation of his experience is not supported by evidence of any kind. As you correctly point out, coma does not equate to “inactivation of the cerebral cortex” or “higher-order brain functions totally offline” or “neurons of [my] cortex stunned into complete inactivity”. These describe brain death, a one hundred percent lethal condition. There are many excellent scholarly articles that discuss the definitions of coma. (For example: 1 & 2)
We are not privy to his EEG records, but high alpha activity is common in coma. Also common is “flat” EEG. The EEG can appear flat even in the presence of high activity, when that activity is not synchronous. For example, the EEG flattens in regions involved in direct task processing. This phenomenon is known as event-related desynchronization (hundreds of references).
As is obvious to you, this is truth by authority. Neurosurgeons, however, are rarely well-trained in brain function. Dr. Alexander cuts brains; he does not appear to study them…
There are many reports of people remembering dream-like states while in medical coma. They lack consistency, of course, but there is nothing particularly unique in Dr. Alexander’s unfortunate episode.”
“Not even in the right ballpark”? His experience sounds so much like a DMT trip that we are not only in the right ballpark, we are talking about the stitching on the same ball. Here is Alexander’s description of the afterlife:Quote:
“I guess one could always argue, “Well, your brain was probably just barely able to ignite real consciousness and then it would flip back into a very diseased state,” which doesn’t make any sense to me. Especially because that hyper-real state is so indescribable and so crisp. It’s totally unlike any drug experience. A lot of people have come up to me and said, “Oh that sounds like a DMT experience,” or “That sounds like ketamine.” Not at all. That is not even in the right ballpark.
Those things do not explain the kind of clarity, the rich interactivity, the layer upon layer of understanding and of lessons taught by deceased loved ones and spiritual beings.”
… (Snipped: you can read the description in the link)
Everything that Alexander describes here and in his Newsweek article, including the parts I have left out, has been reported by DMT users. The similarity is uncanny. Here is how the late Terence McKenna described the prototypical DMT trance:
… (snipped: you can read the description in the link, or just trust that it’s almost identical to Alexander’s)
… He clearly knows nothing about what people with working brains experience under the influence of psychedelics. Nor does he know that visions of the sort that McKenna describes, although they may seem to last for ages, require only a brief span of biological time. Unlike LSD and other long-acting psychedelics, DMT alters consciousness for merely a few minutes. Alexander would have had more than enough time to experience a visionary ecstasy as he was coming out of his coma (whether his cortex was rebooting or not).
Does Alexander know that DMT already exists in the brain as a neurotransmitter? Did his brain experience a surge of DMT release during his coma? This is pure speculation, of course, but it is a far more credible hypothesis than that his cortex “shut down,” freeing his soul to travel to another dimension. As one of his correspondents has already informed him, similar experiences can be had with ketamine, which is a surgical anesthetic that is occasionally used to protect a traumatized brain. Did Alexander by any chance receive ketamine while in the hospital? Would he even think it relevant if he had? His assertion that psychedelics like DMT and ketamine “do not explain the kind of clarity, the rich interactivity, the layer upon layer of understanding” he experienced is perhaps the most amazing thing he has said since he returned from heaven. Such compounds are universally understood to do the job. And most scientists believe that the reliable effects of psychedelics indicate that the brain is at the very least involved in the production of visionary states of the sort Alexander is talking about.
Again, there is nothing to be said against Alexander’s experience. It sounds perfectly sublime. And such ecstasies do tell us something about how good a human mind can feel. The problem is that the conclusions Alexander has drawn from his experience—he continually reminds us, as a scientist—are based on some very obvious errors in reasoning and gaps in his understanding.
Let me suggest that, whether or not heaven exists, Alexander sounds precisely how a scientist should not sound when he doesn’t know what he is talking about.
Again, atheism is not a belief system, but just like in our QM debates, I'm sure you'll keep repeating this falsity ad nauseam.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
I accept Alexander's description of his experience, I do not accept his interpretation of the experience, and the two are very different things. Alexander had a lot to say, and unfortunately, the majority where he's interpreting do nothing but reveal his ignorance about neuroscience. Keep in mind that neurosurgeons are to neuroscientists as construction workers are to architects. Alexander's response didn't address any of the points Harris and other nueroscientists made, it just repeated the same claims he'd already claimed... not terribly different than your debate strategy.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
They don't, they occur NEAR death. You seem to forget that NDE is "NEAR-Death experience," not ADE or AFTER-Death experience. You can not find a single solitary documented case of an AFTER death experience.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
I accept Alexander's description of his experience, I do not accept his interpretation of the experience, and the two are very different things. Alexander had a lot to say, and unfortunately, the majority where he's interpreting do nothing but reveal his ignorance about neuroscience. Keep in mind that neurosurgeons are to neuroscientists as construction workers are to architects. Alexander's response didn't address any of the points Harris and other neuroscientists made, it just repeated the same claims he'd already claimed... not terribly different than your debate strategy.
OK, and I also am willing to accept Dr. Alexander's description of his NDE. But I think your dismissal of his scientific training as a neurosurgeon is a bit glib. He earned his MD at a good medical school and went on to complete his residency in neurosurgery at an excellent residency program. He may not have had the academic neuroscience training of a PhD in neuroscience, but I can assure you that he, like all modern Board Certified neurosurgeons, would certainly have a very good working understanding of the human nervous system. Oliver Sacks, a very thoughtful neurologist, did lament what he felt was Dr. Alexander's apparently "anti-scientific" refusal to believe that there could be a "rational" (i.e. non-religious) explanation for his NDE. But he didn't claim that Dr. Alexander's account of his NDE should be dismissed because of his "ignorance of neuroscience."
This thread began as a discussion about "miracles." I previously posted my definition of a miracle as something that defies "scientific" explanation, and I mentioned as one example the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Somehow this led to discussion of NDE narratives, which is not the same sort of thing.
Lazarus, in the New Testament account, was dead. He was sealed in his tomb for three days, not in a refrigerator. According to the Gospel of John, he was not only dead but was actually stinking from decay when Jesus commanded to arise. If the Gospel account is true, that was a miracle.
All of the modern accounts of persons "returned from death" [or near-death] to life could be explained by supposing that they were not "irreversibly" dead. We could suppose that they "seemed dead" but their bodies (mainly their brains) appeared to be dead, so far as we were able to tell. But in fact they were not really dead.
This begs the question of what is the difference between life and death and how we can determine when a once living body is truly dead.
Regarding the disagreements between Alexander and Harris, both have had experiences that have been studied. Alexander had a near death experience and Harris appears to have experiences of cognitive dissonance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance Because of that, I can't trust that Harris is being rational. He is more likely rationalizing to reduce the pain of dissonance caused by the evidence Alexander presents. When he uses phrases like "unwarranted" or "alarmingly unscientific", I pick up that Harris is frantic.
Harris writes (as quoted by MorpheusSandman) the following
Obviously, the man’s cortex is functioning now—he has, after all, written a book—so whatever structural damage appeared on CT could not have been “global.”
That part exposes the cognitive dissonance Harris must be feeling. Not only did Alexander have an NDE, but given the illness he had, his recovery could be viewed as miraculous if anything was. If Alexander's account is true, Harris's atheistic metaphysics has been falsified by that evidence.
From our distance, it is not easy to tell what the full truth is. However, I have heard enough stories of NDEs and I know, personally as well as watching others, what cognitive dissonance feels like. Because of that I have no reason to doubt the evidence that Alexander presents.
Alexander wasn't dead when he had his experience. He was on life-support, but people don't have to be dead when they have NDEs and certainly the survivors who experience shared death experiences aren't dead. That doesn't mean that people haven't actually died and come back to life. Of course, as Nick Capozzoli mentions that depends on knowing when a body is actually dead.
The question whether raising Lazarus was a miracle, brings up a feature about miracles. They occur because of an intention. Jesus told Lazarus to rise from the dead. He didn't just come back. If one can associate through belief or some other means, such as watching Jesus tell Lazarus to rise, that an event was the result of super human agency, then I can see how one could call that a miracle rather than just an unusual event.
You are assuming that these models are inside the brain somewhere. That is what you need to show.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
He doesn't come right out and say it, but that's very much what he's implying. This reminds me of an exchange I had with mal4mac on Many Worlds where he disliked the "rhetoric" of a few authors I linked to, and posted a link to Sean Carroll whom was saying the same thing, but it a much more affable way. In fact, it was so affable that when I said Carroll claimed a certain interpretation "makes no sense and is only accepted by people who don't think about it," mal boldly retorted "he didn't say that!" even though he clearly did, only couched in implicit qualifiers (you can follow this brief exchange here: http://www.online-literature.com/for...=1#post1244015 starting with the bottom quote). Point being: don't mistake tone for what's being claimed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick Capozzoli
Sacks is implying that Alexander is quite ignorant of the relevant science by pointing out how he's ignoring alternatives, or making extremely dubious claims. In fact, calling him "anti-scientific" would arguably be worse to a scientist than calling him "ignorant" on a particular topic of science. I'm quite certain that Sacks utterly agrees with Harris's statement that: "everything — absolutely everything — in Alexander’s account rests on repeated assertions that his visions of heaven occurred while his cerebral cortex was 'shut down,' 'inactivated,' 'completely shut down,' 'totally offline,' and 'stunned to complete inactivity.' The evidence he provides for this claim is not only inadequate — it suggests that he doesn’t know anything about the relevant brain science.” Harris provides a long list of reasons why the claim is inadequate, Sacks provides but a few, but both are making, essentially, the same claim that Alexander's claims are extremely dubious and, if not "ignorant," than quite "anti-scientific."
:rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
I've got you figured out, YesNo. Here's the pattern: everyone that has an "experience" and seeks to explain that experience is perfectly accurate, rational, knowledgeable and correct when their explanations agree with your beliefs. Anyone that casts doubts on those explanations, regardless of their expertise, is a victim of cognitive dissonance, irrational, and acting out of a perceived threat to their metaphysics. It's not enough that you have three (!!!) leading neuroscientists (Harris, Sacks, Cohen) pointing out the ignorance of Alexander's claims, it surely must be that all are suffering from cognitive dissonance. Of course, that's an extremely convenient accusation: Simply claim something and, no matter how far-fetched, no matter how ignorant, no matter how many experts disagree, simply claim that anyone whom disagrees is a victim of cognitive dissonance. Brilliant!
How in the world does that quote "expose" Harris's supposed cognitive dissonance?Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
One doesn't have to know what the full truth is to recognize that there are multiple possible truths, some far more likely than others. In fact, only Alexander is claiming to "tell the full truth," while Harris, Cohen, Sacks have pointed out multiple other possible truths that are far more likely given what we know about neuroscience; furthermore, they've provided ample evidence that Alexander's evidence is not even sufficient to support his factual claims. One of the most simple and damning examples is this:Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
"Alexander asserts that the cessation of cortical activity was “clear from the severity and duration of my meningitis, and from the global cortical involvement documented by CT scans and neurological examinations..." The problem, however, is that “CT scans and neurological examinations” can’t determine neuronal inactivity—in the cortex or anywhere else. And Alexander makes no reference to functional data that might have been acquired by fMRI, PET, or EEG—nor does he seem to realize that only this sort of evidence could support his case."
So, YesNo, I'd like to see you explicitly address the claim above: what are we to make of the fact that Alexander claims that his cortex was shut down based on the evidence of CT scans and neurological examinations, even though CT scans and neurological examinations can't determine neuronal inactivity? Why are you assuming the truth of his claim when his evidence is so insufficient?
Actually people have to NOT be dead to have an NDE, since NDE stands for NEAR-death experience, as I've pointed out multiple times to you (and you continue to ignore, as usual).Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
What the funk do you think the brain does? If you believe "the wall is white" is the thought "the wall is white" not stored in your brain? Similarly, if the belief "I will meet Garbagul when I died" not stored in the brain?Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
http://news.discovery.com/human/heal...nce-130813.htm
And a Q & A with the study's author:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...-bright-light/
Where precisely in the brain is it stored?Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
From what I understand this article claims there is evidence of a 30 second window of brain activity after a cardiac arrest. In general the existence of brain activity is not the critical issue, but the 30 second window is not a lot of time. One would expect there to be brain activity if the person is still alive. The people who have shared death experiences are all alive. If the person is dead, there should be no brain activity.Quote:
Originally Posted by Calidore
There are two basic ways to look at the brain as I understand it. Either it generates consciousness or it filters consciousness somewhat like a radio resonates with an electromagnetic wave converting the information into sound waves for us to hear, if one ignores the machine analogy.
If the brain generates consciousness, it must store the memories. I don't know where those memories are stored. Also, if that model were true, I don't see how one could artificially stimulate the brain and generate things like out of body experiences which have been demonstrated. So, it seems to me the brain functions more as a filter for consciousness rather than a generator of consciousness.
Don't know. Ask a neuroscientist. Oh, wait, I forgot... you think they all suffer from cognitive dissonance when they doubt claims made about what is/isn't or can/can't happen in the brain during a coma by non-neuroscientists.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
No worries. I don't know either, however, I'm now curious.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
I did find this one, dated August 13, 2013, so it is not too out of date: http://phys.org/news/2013-08-flatwor...ies-brain.html
What you have to do is this:
1) Find a species you can train to do something.
2) Assume the memory is stored in some body part that the species can do without.
3) In the case of planarian flatworms, their entire brain is apparently disposable, so assume their memories are stored somewhere in their brains.
4) After they have been trained, cut off their heads and see if they can still remember what you taught them.
Edit:
I just found this about slime molds: http://www.livescience.com/23797-bra...-memories.html It looks like they have a brainless form of memory. What I find even more amazing is that it looks like they make choices based on those memories. Does that mean they're intelligent in some way?
In order to link this back to the OP, maybe I should just say, "It's a miracle!"
Edit 2:
Speaking of intelligence, and getting back to higher forms of life, here is a video describing the savant Daniel Tammet who uses synesthesia to learn languages and calculate: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-b...redible-brain/
It is a good thing they called him a savant rather than a psychic although I wonder what the difference is between the two. As a child he had a seizure which left him in this state and it makes me wonder what the difference is between that and an NDE.
Is Tammet's ability "miraculous"?
With a bit of clever editing, I just showed how your post accurately describes ALL claims of miracles!Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
I doubt it, but I am not looking for miracles. That doesn't mean that the non-miraculous, mechanistic belief system is correct. That looks even more false than saying something is miraculous.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
"More false"? Huh? Having a natural cause behind unexplained phenomena is the opposite of proclaiming divine/supernatural miracles. One can not be "more false" or "more right" as they're mutually incompatible explanations. Every "miracle" claim is identical to the "God of the gaps" fallacy: "we don't know, so God/miracle!" The entire history of science, especially modern science, is one of finding natural, mechanistic explanations behind what were once explained by God and miracles. There is no evidence that trend won't continue as our knowledge increases.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Not that I disagree with your argument, but it's an enormous stretch to call Sam Harris a "leading" neuroscientist.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
If you don't count blog posts as "publications", his output is minimal, and his research is neither particularly original or insightful.
Then, if you ever thought Sam Harris was worth listening to, you'd only have to read his defence of torture or profiling to realise that he is a legend in his own mind only.
A [very short] list of his actual neuroscience publications can be found here: http://www.jneurosci.org/
Fair enough, though the argument works just as well without the "leading" adjective, and is probably all the more damning if even a middling or substandard neuroscientist can point out the glaring flaws in Alexander's claims. I am not a big fan of Harris' philosophical writings, and I would agree there are far better atheism advocates out there, but I'd never heard anything said against him as a neuroscientist.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
You are probably right about Sacks's circumspection compared to Harris's re Alexander's supposed "ignorance" of neuroscience. I agree with Sacks's opinion, and find it more measured and polite.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
I do believe that all of our subjective experiences, including NDE, are produced by our brains. We still do not know exactly how our brains produce our conscious experience of the world, but we are very certain that the brain is the organ that provides us with such experience. The human brain has evolved over time to be what it is.
The brain is part of the body, and depends on the rest of the body to remain "alive" to do what it does. The same applies to any other bodily organs, such as the skin and muscles. When the body "dies," its tissues and organs can no longer "live" and will sooner or later "die," mainly from lack of oxygen and nutrients. By organ death, I mean "irreversible" injury to the cellular tissues of the body. The time for particular body tissues and organs to "die" varies. For example, after cardiac arrest the brain typically dies after about 5 minutes, maybe longer if there are factors, such as hypothermia, that could slow the entropic degradation of the tissues. Some tissues and organs, like the skin, kidneys, and heart, can survive longer periods of cardiac arrest. Indeed, this is the reason that such tissues can be used for organ transplantation.
Unlike these other "unconscious" tissues, the brain has a function of "awareness." During cardiac arrest, the brain is deprived of oxygen and reacts to the loss, presumably by producing the "experiences" of NDE. That may include all sorts of experiences, such as visual hallucinations (the tunnel and white light) the experience of random memories, etc.).
I don't think that we need to invoke any "miracles" about NDE's, as these could be explained as due to the in extremis function of the human brain.
A "real" miracle would be the resuscitation of a thermodynamically "dead" brain and body, i.e. the Biblical resurrection of Lazarus.
Also, maybe people would be more likely to believe religious miracles if the ones claimed - holy fire, levitating hosts and Medujgorje weren't such obvious fakes.
The kind of miracle I'd like to see would involve all weapons being turned into chocolate.
Shouldn't be too hard for an entity that creates entire universes.